Curdie dared not stop to think. It was much too terrible to think about. He rushed to the fire, and thrust both his hands right into the middle of the heap of flaming roses, and his arms halfway up to the elbows. And it _did_ hurt! But he did not draw them back. He held the pain as if it were a thing that would kill him if he let it go--as indeed it would have done. He was in terrible fear lest it should conquer him. But when it had risen to the pitch that he thought he _could_ bear it no longer, it began to fall again, and went on growing less and less until by contrast with its former severity it had become rather pleasant. At last it ceased altogether, and Curdie thought his hands must be burnt to cinders if not ashes, for he did not feel them at all. The princess told him to take them out and look at them. He did so, and found that all that was gone of them was the rough hard skin; they were white and smooth like the princess's. "Come to me," she said. He obeyed, and saw, to his surprise, that her face looked as if she had been weeping. "Oh, princess! what _is_ the matter?" he cried. "Did I make a noise and vex you?" "No, Curdie," she answered; "but it was very bad." "Did you feel it too then?" "Of course I did. But now it is over, and all is well.--Would you like to know why I made you put your hands in the fire?" Curdie looked at them again--then said,-- "To take the marks of the work off them, and make them fit for the king's court, I suppose." "No, Curdie," answered the princess, shaking her head, for she was not pleased with the answer. "It would be a poor way of making your hands fit for the king's court to take off them all signs of his service. There is a far greater difference on them than that. Do you feel none?" "No, ma'am." "You will, though, by and by, when the time comes. But perhaps even then you might not know what had been given you, therefore I will tell you.--Have you ever heard what some philosophers say--that men were all animals once?" "No, ma'am." "It is of no consequence. But there is another thing that is of the greatest consequence--this: that all men, if they do not take care, go down the hill to the animals' country; that many men are actually, all their lives, going to be beasts. People knew it once, but it is long since they forgot it." "I am not surprised to hear it, ma'am, when I think of some of our miners."